End him - Aksala growled and retreated to the back of my mind, waiting. Her excited rage was palpable.
I walked up to my father's desk that he had the nerve to sit at. My finger brushed the familiar polished wood and pain clawed at me. This was the last part, I silently promise my mother and father. Grief had no place here, not yet.
I focused instead on the sheets of paper. They started out legible, numbers that might have been accounts, a list of names, but then scribbles drowned in black ink marred the rest of the pages.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of watching him even out of the corner of my eye. It was an insult to not even watch your opponent. But I didn’t see him as one, and he knew that.
When I looked up, he wasn’t afraid anymore. He was staring at me with the disgust I should have worn for him.
His eyes were black, skin pale and etched with those crawling inky veins.
He looked and felt… wrong.
“You cannot be this shocked to see me standing here,” I started. “I won’t drag it out. And I won’t wait until your dying breath to ask you this.” I tilted my head, trying to keep the hurt from my face and voice. “Why?”
His lips pressed together in a way that seemed pained. Something in his face seemed to twitch.
“Do you speak, or has that also been a price of this stolen power?” I asked nonchalantly. “Tell me, uncle, what else did you pay? Besides my pack’s lives, what payment has it demanded from you.” I slid my eyes over him with disgust.
“I have paid the price a thousand times over, I-” He stopped. His voice was too familiar, unchanged, but it came out of husk of a person.
“Would you pay that price again?” I asked, glancing up at him.
“I-” he stammered.
I turned to him, standing tall. “Speak,” I commanded.
He fought against everything, but he lowered his head. “I am sorry for what you have gone through, it wasn’t my intention.”
“Because you intended me dead?” I asked.
“Simon-”
I cut him off, “That was not a question,” I growled. “I will accept your apology for keeping me alive; it has been… trying.” What a word to diminish years of torture.
I walked slowly back and forth in front of him. “But that is where my grace ends.” I stopped.
“Imagine my hurt that my father’s closest friend couldn’t even murder his daughter when you found me still alive.” I shook my head, tutting at him. “I am almost glad he is not here so he will not have to witness how pathetic you have turned out to be.”
“You know nothing,” he snarled.
That wicked power rose with him. But I had a wickness all of my own.
I smiled back. “I think you forget that at Blood Moon we handle our own kills. We do not hire others to do that for us.”
His eyes narrowed, and his face slackened, then hardened with rage when it clicked that Ezra was truly against him or maybe that I had outsmarted his hired help.
Either way, it was satisfying to watch.
“I did not want to kill you myself,” he snarled.
I took a step back. “Why?” I made my eyes wide. “Because that would have been too much?” I let out a hollow laugh. “But then again, wasn’t that always your style, Miles? To back away and let others do it for you?”
His rage hardened, and his thrumming power seemed to as well. I did not understand what it could do, but I knew that it was mine and it would not hurt me.
“You are not worthy to be called a Blood Moon pack member,” I said, the hard truth ringing through my words. “But I will alleviate you of any ties.” I pulled the dagged from my thigh and flipped it around in my hand.
It calmed me, settled me, it was familiar, and reminded me of Ezra.
“You think that you can do that?” He barked a wet laugh. “You have been playing the docile Alpha’s whore for far too long.” He stood tall. “Alpha Raymond is dumb, he did not know you, he did not train you. But I did.”
I looked at the dagger in my hand. “Was dumb,” I corrected. “And The Alpha of Black River is Simone now,” I told him, letting the soft light above us flicker and shine off the dagger in my hand.
“Blood Moon is mine,” he snarled.
“Actually, I think it went to Raymond, and when I killed him, it went back to me.” I tapped my chin.
“There is nothing here for you. You should have run when you had the chance.”
“See, that’s the thing, Miles.” I flipped the dagger higher and caught it. “I don’t run.”
His nostrils flared. “So, have come to your death for what reason?” he asked, cackling. The sound was sharp yet hollow. “To prove a point? To become the Alpha of nothing.” I fought myself from ending him right there.
I slid my eyes to his. “You cannot be that naive.” I put on a sad little pout. “For justice, vengeance, revenge.” I shrugged, punctuating my words with the waving of my dagger.
“Maybe just because I have a taste for blood now, or maybe.” I sneered, looking him up and down. “I have become addicted to the sound of a man’s last scream being trapped forever around my blade.”
I sighed at the memory, then turned to him. I let my rage lap up and meet with the cool, calm place of the fight. They melded fire against steel and created a place that I knew well—a world wholly my own inhabited by nothing but me armored with fury and instinct.
I did not become death.
I was death.
“I will ask you one more time, uncle.” I let the anger rise and coat my words. His eyes widened, and it only fueled me. “Why?” I stalked toward him, stopping a mere foot away.
His nose twitched. “It does not matter,” he snarled, “It is done.”
I sighed. “So be it.” I walked toward the blackened fireplace behind my father’s desk. It was cold, not recently used, and that made me even more confused about Miles, and what he had intended, but curiosity did not matter.
I threw a few logs in over the paper that lay there, wiping my hands on my pants.
“Only one of us will walk out with our lives today. Why not share before you kill me?” I said over my shoulder, flashing him a pretty smile.
I found a box of matches and lit the fire, stoking it with the poker and making sure it took. I left the fire poker in the embers. “Or tell me to relieve a weight before you fade into the afterlife?”
I crossed my arms and walked his lips pursed, and he eyed me. His left eye twitched, and it flared a memory that ignited my instincts. I dove down as he lunged over me.
I flipped my dagger and waited until he righted himself.
“We both know you will not make it out of here alive,” I spoke softly. “You may not have come to terms with that, but a part of you knows you will not.” I pinned him with a stare as he towered over me.
“So you can decide how painful it will be. And I can promise you that. That it will be painful,” I told him. “I keep my word, and I can promise you will suffer.”
He growled; his spit was thick and black.
“I will ask you one last time,” I raised my voice. “Why?” I demanded.
His body heaved up and down; it seemed bigger than himself. The shadows crawled behind him. What did you do to my pack? I seethed internally.
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Let’s do it the fun way.”
I flipped the dagger in my hand and held it to aim at his heart. His hands looked claw like, his strange power ripped from him. I unleashed my Alpha aura in a way I did not have to think about.
Our powers met.
But his was borrowed, warped, and twisted, and it belonged to me.
It succumbed to me and I beckoned it back, back to where it belonged.
Mile’s eyes were wide. I knew he sensed it, too—that he was losing control of the one thing he was counting on.
My smile was made of satisfaction and of power I had earned. It promised him exactly what I would do.
Run - I commanded through the link.